UW Madison fusion energy research hits milestone with generation of plasma

A four-year nuclear endeavor led University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to generate plasma from a fusion device on July 15, and brought the university a step closer to making a carbon-free energy source a reality.

Many have heard of the three most common states of matter — solids, liquids and gasses — but a lesser-known state is plasma. The state of plasma is where nuclear fusion reactions take place, and from there carbon-free energy can be produced.

"The outlook for de-carbonizing our energy sector is just much higher with fusion than anything else," said Cary Forest, a UW-Madison physics professor.

Forest is one of the professors who helped lead the development of the fusion energy device called Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror, or WHAM for short.

Bryce Richter/University of Wisconsin-Madison

The device is at a UW-Madison lab in Stoughton and was just deemed operational this week after years of research that gained support from the US Department of Energy. The university, along with MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems received $10 million in grants from USDE to build WHAM.

To get plasma, scientists super-heat atoms, like different variations of hydrogen, to incredible temperatures. The atoms are moved at fast speeds in the reactor with strong magnets and the nuclei — the middle of the atom — fuse together.

Energy from this reaction is captured as heat and can be converted into electricity.

The elements used to create plasma are actually incredibly common and cheap. The form of hydrogen used called deuterium is found in water, and the version of lithium called tritium needed is less than what goes into a lithium-ion battery.

The deuterium from a glass of water, and a sprinkle of tritium could power a home for a year.

The ingredients may be accessible, but harnessing the energy from a fusion reaction is no small feat. Decades of research have led to breakthroughs like at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility, where researchers accomplished a fusion reaction where more energy was gained than used.

UW-Madison has not reached this stage just yet, but generating plasma is the first step.

Forest and Jay Anderson, a UW-Madison scientist, co-founded Realta Fusion, a company designed to help bolster the WHAM project.

“Realta over the last year and a half has really amplified what the UW team been able to accomplish," Anderson said.

Graduate and undergraduate students can work with the machine and the researchers are hopeful the program will help further research in fusion energy.

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